


Inuring

by oldandnewfirm



Series: The Silent Lark [2]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-04-24
Updated: 2012-06-06
Packaged: 2017-11-04 06:34:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/390851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oldandnewfirm/pseuds/oldandnewfirm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In exchange for the lives of her people, Belle traded her freedom, and her body, to the Dark One. Now there’s a chance she can escape her fate, but at what price? Part two of the Silent Lark series. (On hiatus until Sept., not abandoned!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the sequel to my story Sacrifice.

Belle knows what it is to live with dread in her belly. For the three years of the war it had squeezed the breath from her lungs, had bubbled like acid in her throat. She was wrong when she thought that she had brought no mementos with her from her father’s house weeks ago: dread has found passage in her very marrow, it seems, and it thrums through her veins now on the back of a frisson of awareness. She knows without turning that she is no longer alone in the hall.

“Afternoon, dearie.”

Afternoon? She glances at the window, but the heavy draperies over it offer nothing but a hazy red glow that could belong to any time between dawn and sunset. The same is true of all the windows in the castle. It is why she stopped trying to track time here long ago.

“Sir,” she says, without looking at him. She resumes her sweeping, though her shoulders remain hunched like a shield.

She hears the scuff of his boots against the stones, but to her surprise he makes no move to approach her. The silence between them grows heavier by the moment, until Belle is half tempted to wheel on him with her broom and shock him into either stating his business or skittering back to his den in the high tower, whichever will keep him away from her longer.

But just as she clenches her broom handle and starts to rock on her feet, Rumplestiltskin clears his throat and speaks.

“Your father is well.”

She looks over her shoulder, slowly. “I was not aware there was a reason for him to be otherwise.”

“He sent you this.” A long strip of parchment dangles between Rumplestiltskin’s pinched fingers. “I was simply relating his message to you.”

Belle’s heart flutters. She turns, takes a step forward. “I would like to read it myself.”

“I’m sure you would. But we can’t have that, dearie. Who knows what else is hidden between these lines?”

He waggles the paper, and her eyes follow it. In her periphery she is aware of his lips curling up, up into a little grin that makes her want to dig her nails into his face and tear it away until there’s nothing left but scraps of meat clinging to bone.

“If you truly thought that, you wouldn’t have told me about it in the first place.” She manages to keep her voice level despite the way her blood pops and hisses in her skull. “And what plan could my father possibly have? The lives of our people are bound to my confinement here.” She holds out her hand, palm up. “Let me have it.  _Please_.”

She forces herself to bite out the last word. She knows by the little moue he makes that he is unconvinced.

“Maybe you’re right. But I think you can ask more nicely than that. Don’t you, dearie?”

She looks at the letter, filled from end to end with her father’s broad script, and longing stabs her hard enough to make her eyes sting. When she slides her gaze up to Rumplestiltskin’s face she finds no sympathy there. Just that slim, sharp smile that leaves no question of what the price of his kindness will be.

Belle leans her broom against the wall. She follows after it, palms pressed flat to the cold stones and her arms stretched out so that she’s arching over the wall. She ignores the sound of Rumplestiltskin’s footsteps bringing him closer, and focuses instead on breathing. In and out, in and out. It would be over soon enough.

His mottled fingers find the curve of her shoulder and sweep her hair back. His breath falls warm against the back of her neck. He brushes a kiss there, and her skin vibrates with his dark chuckle.

“Much better,” he purrs.

* * *

She reads the letter in her chambers that evening.  There’s news of the war, now ended in her province but still raging elsewhere; a summary of prayers and well-wishes from her friends, including Gaston, who together with his father Lord Wells was preparing their troops to return to their own land; and words of hope and encouragement from her father, who promises that he will petition Rumplestiltskin for the chance to visit her in the spring, after the snow clears.

She rereads it twice, just to make sure that she’s understood everything. Then, she takes it to the fireplace and presses a single kiss to the page before feeding it to the flames.

As she watches it burn, she thinks that Rumplestiltskin would do well to pay more attention to his instincts.

Three years at war and a lifetime of politics have rendered her father a deft hand at cipher, and he in turn taught Belle to understand it. The cipher he uses now is one they crafted together, and  Belle sees the places in his letter where he’d closed loops a hair too tightly, dotted “I”s a little off center, and allowed his quill to linger a half-second too long on the page. And while his overt message to her is comforting, the one woven beneath it makes her want to laugh and cry all at once.

Her father has a plan to bring her home, and they will enact it in the spring.

He leaves no further details. It is difficult to encode long messages with this particular cipher, Belle knows, but she also suspects the letter is a test: if she responds, then her father will know that he has found a secure way to communicate with her, and that their plan can move forward. But if she doesn’t respond…

_It’s forever, dearie._

She strides over to the writing desk in the corner. Even as she collects ink, quill, and parchment, and starts writing out her inquiry to her father, carefully masked beneath mundane greetings and conversation, she is sure that his efforts will be futile. Her father means well, but she cannot leave this place. Still. At least he’s come up with _something_ , some small hope to comfort the two of them to cling to, and she will not disappoint him with silence.

That night, sleep never comes. A hundred scenarios for her rescue march across her mind— some grand and glorious, others gruesome and tragic. When dawn arrives she springs from bed and prepares for her day in half the usual time, her actions sped by a nervous energy that only leaves her when she creeps into the hallway and begins to make her way to the roost in the East wing.

The halls are silent. Rumplestiltskin is seldom awake this early, preferring instead to work well into the wee hours and sleep until midafternoon. She chose to begin her day at first light shortly after making this discovery—anything to avoid him, even if early rising put her in a sour temper—and she hopes that her decision will further benefit her now.

Though she moves on kitten’s feet, in her ears her footsteps still echo like drumbeats. Her breath catches at every shadow and her heart trips up at the faint skittering of mice over the floor. She has walked this path countless times, but until this moment the way has never seemed so long.

The door to the roost groans open at her touch. Belle winces, partly from the sound as it crashes down the stairwell, and partly from the staggering odor of bird droppings that emanates from the open door. There was a reason she’d designated this as the one place in the castle she refused to clean.

She claps a hand over her mouth and nose to try and filter the stench as she slips inside and shuts the door behind her.

This early in the morning the room is an explosion of feathers and shrieking as the birds who live in the tower everyday begin to wake and shout greetings to their cousins now arriving from locales far and near, each of them bearing the message of a desperate soul with no one left to turn to. People like her father. People like her.

She presses herself against the wall, stares up into the mass of small, fluffy bodies, and tries to make sense of the chaos.

At last she spies a likely candidate for her needs: a thrush of some kind, its legs free of messages and its eyes watching her approach with a docility born of years of human interaction. It does not startle when Belle reaches out to lift it from its perch, and it seems happy to rest on her knee as she crouches, fishes her letter out of her dress, and starts to roll it around the bird’s leg.

“And what are we doing, dearie?”

Belle freezes and looks around. The writhing mass of birds offers enough breaks between its members for her to make out the hem of a coat, the laces of a boot, a flash of green-gold skin, and finally Rumplestiltskin himself as he rounds the roost and stops at her side. He smiles, but there’s nothing friendly in his eyes.

“I’m responding to my father’s letter,” she says. The bird pecks her hand, and Belle realizes that she has begun to squeeze it a touch too tightly. She lets it go, and it flutters back up to join its fellows.

Rumplestiltskin  _tuts_ at her and waggles an admonishing finger in the air. “Ah ah ah, let’s see that first, shall we?”

She sighs and hands him the letter. He smooths it out over his palm and begins to read its contents with a showman’s flair.

“Dear papa! I hope this letter finds you well. I am glad to hear that our soldiers are returning and that restoration work has begun, blah blah blah, send Gaston my sincerest regrets, blah blah blah, though my circumstances are much changed I will continue to persevere as you’ve taught me, blah blah blah, I would be delighted if you were able to come and see me in the spring, and I shall hope that my host allows you to do so. In the meantime, please keep me in your thoughts and prayers. Love, Belle.”

He shakes his head and fills his voice with hurt. “Why there’s hardly a mention of me at all! Surely you could’ve spared a few words about your charming host and his gracious hospitality.”

Belle doesn’t reward his mockery with a response.

He glances over the letter again. “And you could’ve added an extra line to save him some trouble—that little visit of his is never going to happen.”

He hands clench in her skirt. “I know that I cannot leave the castle, but I see no reason to prevent my family from coming to see me.”

His lip curls. “I’m not fond of company—or at least company that’s of no use to me.”

He gives her a salacious wink. She fights back a shudder.

“You really mean to keep me locked away.” It isn’t a question, because she already knows the answer.

“Having second thoughts about our deal, dearie? I’d be happy to send you back. After all, it’s not too late remind the ogre lords that there’s a lovely little province by the coast they overlooked when they set about turning Harold’s kingdom into a field of fire and blood. ”

Sadness flashes through her eyes, but she says nothing. He’s right, after all, and if he truly intends to keep her isolated in this place  _forever_ , then she doubts there is anything she can do to dissuade him.

His smile fades as he stares at her. He drums his nails against the wall for a moment. Then, he makes a strange little humming noise and a rook detaches itself from the flock of birds and flutters down to land obediently on his arm. With another twitch of his finger, her letter wraps itself securely around the bird’s leg, and Rumplestiltskin makes another noise that sends the bird launching from his arm and out the window.

“I’ll be sending these out for you from now on, dearie.” He says, still staring after the bird. “I’d hate to think that you were putting anything in your letters that might tarnish my good name.”

He grins at her, as though expecting to her laugh at his joke, but Belle just stares at him, eyes widened slightly.

“You’re allowing me to write home?”

He shrugs and waves dismissively. “If it keeps your nosy relatives away from my gates, I’ll tolerate it.”

 “Thank you,” she says after a long moment, without looking at him. It’s the first time she’s used the words sincerely since she came here, and they emerge hesitant and sullen.

He’s quiet for a while. Then, “Yes. Well. It’s about time for breakfast, isn’t it, dearie? Best hurry. My good graces fail on an empty stomach.”

He exits the roost in a swirl of dragon hide, leaving Belle frowning at the door.

* * *

In the days that follow, Belle finds herself entering every encounter with Rumplestiltskin with a mix of cautious hope and anxiety. Though she never voices the question burning on her tongue, when her eyes flick to his, his lip quirks into a sardonic smile and he shakes his head.  _Not yet._

He could be lying to her. She has no way of knowing, for he reads his messages in his tower in the West wing, the one place besides his bedchamber that she is forbidden from entering. It wouldn’t surprise her if he keeps the letter tucked away in a drawer somewhere for days or weeks after it arrives, simply because he knows how badly she wants it.

But an afternoon finally arrives when, as she’s serving Rumplestiltskin his tea, he produces a little roll of paper from the depths of his coat and holds it out to her. “A little bird brought something for you.”

Belle looks from the letter to him and back again, then she yelps when she realizes that the tea she’s been pouring has started overflowing the cup.

Rumplestiltskin makes an amused sound and leans back in his chair. “You’re lucky you were born into wealth. Household service is not your strength.”

She doesn’t answer him, and instead she sets the teapot down and lifts the cup to blot its bottom carefully with her skirt. Rumplestiltskin takes the cup from her hand, making sure to trap her fingers beneath his own just long enough to make her uncomfortable.

“It’s all very boring,” he says, twirling the letter between the fingers of his free hand. “Hardly worth your time.”

“I have plenty of time to spare.”

He makes a noise of assent. “So you do.”

With that, he hands her the letter.

Belle blinks at it in wonder, then narrows her eyes at him in suspicion, but his expression offers nothing. She bobs her head, then turns to go.

“Ah ah, dearie! I didn’t say you were dismissed.”

Of course. There was always something else, with him. Dread churns in her gut as she stops and turns.

Rumplestiltskin gestures to a chair. “Since you’ve plenty of time to spare, you can spare a few moments of it in my company.”

She almost points out how often she’s been forced to endure his “company” since she came here. Instead she shifts on her feet and frowns at the chair. The table in the great hall had played host to her… _arrival,_ and the sight of it still makes her uneasy. The idea of sitting at it, even more so.

“Unless you’d prefer we retire somewhere more comfortable later…?”

Belle sits down.

He watches her over the rim of his cup as he sips his tea. Belle tries her best to ignore him as she unfurls the letter over the tabletop and begins to read.

She skims over his surface message— more news of their land’s restoration and a few personal notes as well—then tries to read his hidden message as quickly as she can, so as to not arouse Rumplestiltskin’s suspicions. It seems her father has found someone who is sure they can help her escape without consequence. The catch? Belle can only be rescued if she makes it outside the castle.

She manages to keep the shock off her face, but it’s a near thing.

“Anything interesting?” Rumplestiltskin asks.

For a moment she’s sure that he’s realized something is amiss, but there’s a note of genuine interest beneath his casual tone.

Belle nods slowly as she rolls up the letter and sticks it into the pocket of her dress. “A dear friend of mine discovered that she’s with child. She’s expecting in the fall.”

“I imagine you’ll hear many such tidings soon enough. People tend to be…boisterous when celebrating victory.”

“I suppose,” she says, drawing out the words in the way of one who isn’t sure why they’ve been engaged in a conversation in the first place, “I’ve seen no other wars.”

“Ah, yes. Yours is a quiet little province, isn’t it?”

“It is.”

Silence crawls between them.

Finally, Rumplestiltskin sets his cup down and sighs.

“You’re dismissed,” he says sharply, flapping his hand towards the door. Belle doesn’t wait for him to change his mind.

She resumes her usual duties—cleaning, cooking, and the like—with a half-hearted effort. She can’t take her mind off of the message in her father’s letter.

Leave the castle? She’s forbidden from setting foot on the castle grounds; the doors to the outside won’t even open for her. How on earth could she reach the gates, further less set foot outside them?

And who in the realms was mad enough to risk Rumplestiltskin’s wrath by helping her escape?


	2. Chapter 2

Belle corresponds with her father regularly and, little by little, she learns more of his plans. He’s being aided by an elderly witch, a refugee from Avonlea, who approached him as soon as she learned of Belle’s sacrifice and how it had ended the war in their region. She claimed to know how Rumplestiltskin could be defeated, but she required time to seek out the means necessary to do so—hence Belle’s long wait for rescue. But the witch was not powerful enough to take Belle from the castle—that, Belle would have to accomplish on her own.

Easy, like reordering time or moving the stars.

And yet, she can’t deny the flutter of hope in her chest at the thought of freedom. She’d tried to bury such dreams early in her captivity, knowing that she’d only torment herself by lingering on what she’d left behind.  Even now she scolds herself for her flicker of faith in her father’s well-meaning, but likely ill-fated, plan. After all, who was this witch from Avonlea who claimed to be capable of a feat that had eluded armies and sorcerers for generations? Surely if there was a way to defeat Rumplestiltskin, someone would have heard of it by now. Some would have  _done_ it by now.

 _Someone did,_ came that soft, treacherous little voice in her head,  _and now, they will._

Nonsense. Her father had found a charlatan who wanted to milk some coin from his grief, nothing more. In any case, no matter how grotesque his terms, Rumplestiltskin _had_ fulfilled his end of their bargain. And though part of Belle wilts at the thought of a lifetime spent as a slave to Rumplestiltskin’s pleasure, an equal part of her rankles at the idea of betraying the only being that had been able to save everyone she loved from death.

_And yet…_

 Hope, once lit, is not so easily snuffed out again.

But spring is a long way off yet. There’s still plenty of time for the witch’s ruse to be uncovered or, in the event her words are true, for Belle to devise a way of getting out of the castle. Belle finds her mind slipping to the latter task more often than she’d like it to. As she goes about her chores, she starts noting the many ways into and out of the castle: doors, windows, chimneys, —even the garderobes, if she was truly desperate. But hers is a well-constructed cage, and each route is sealed by locks, bars, magic, or all three. (Save perhaps the garderobes, but she is  _not_ that desperate yet.)

Had the castle stood on a smaller estate, been less fortified, or been built closer to town, Belle would understand Rumplestiltskin’s caution. But from what she can see as she cleans the castle’s many windows, the castle grounds stretch for acres and are protected on all sides by walls that are higher than any ladder she’s found can reach, and that are as thick as three of her stacked end to end.  Unless Rumplestiltskin thinks she’s assembling a battering ram out of table legs and statuary, there’s no way for her to leave the estate.

Why, then, was she not allowed on the castle grounds at least? They’re roughshod, true: though she’s spied a hedge maze, orchards, fountains, horseshoes, nine pins, and walkways winding through what will no doubt be lush gardens come spring, they all suffer from overgrowth and disrepair.

Honestly, why did Rumplestiltskin bother with such a large estate if he wasn’t going to take care of it? Just looking at the grounds makes Belle’s hands twitch with the urge to uproot, to replant, and to trim. A few hours spent tending the grounds would be a welcome change from cleaning the castle’s somber interior. And it might even grant her a few more Rumplestiltkin-free hours. If the curtains were any indication, was not that fond of the outdoors or sunlight.

The only reason she can think of for his refusal to let her outside of the castle is spite. It wouldn’t be the first pleasure he’s denied her in retaliation for her refusal to enjoy her carnal duties. If she offered herself to him he _might_ relent, but even though she’s lain with him more times than she’s cared to count, the idea of it—the idea that  _this_ is what her life has become, subservience and small favors earned by lying on her back— makes her queasy.

He had her up against the wall in exchange for a letter. What will he demand from her in exchange for a small taste of freedom?

She tries to push the topic from her mind. The next few days find her tidying up the storeroom, sweeping out the dungeon, and rearranging the armory—engrossing tasks set in windowless spaces where she won’t be distracted by sunlight peeking around the drapery. But she cannot stay in the dark and dank forever; worse, the lack of natural light only makes her crave it  _more._ So she makes her way upstairs again to scrub, sweep, and polish. If the air in the castle suddenly seems stale and stifling, it’s only her imagination. And if her feet have more energy than there are rooms and corridors to burn it off in, it’s only because she hasn’t been working as hard as she ought to. And the hallways aren’t growing narrower by the hour, like a jaw trap that’s slowly closing over her.

After a week, Belle reconsiders her battering ram idea.

After two weeks, she decides it would be faster to just hurl herself through the window at ramming speed instead.

She’s imagining doing just that when Rumplestiltskin finds her. For once she’s so distracted that she doesn’t sense his arrival, and when he detaches himself from the shadows and barks her name she jerks and sends the silver she’d been polishing clattering to the floor.

He stalks over to her as she scrambles to collect the silverware she’s dropped.  “Daydreaming, dearie?”

She takes one look at his face and decides to keep the silverware in her hands. Not that she’s going to do him much damage armed with butter knives and spoons, but by the gods, she’ll make an effort of it.

She’s scarcely standing before he speaks again. “I found _this—_ ” he pulls his hand from behind his back and dangles something at her. “—near my wheel. What is it?”

“It” is a square sheet of butcher paper covered in a homemade glue mixture. Or at least, it had been. It now bears a distinct boot print that makes Belle glance down and see that, yes, there is now a series of sticky footprints on the floor. She laughs; she can’t help it. Even if it means she’ll have to scrub the floor again, it’s worth it to imagine Rumplestiltskin’s frustration at discovering her device in the first place.

She calms quickly, but Rumplestiltskin is staring at her like she’s sprouted a dragon’s head from her shoulder. Belle swallows back the last of her smile and gestures at the object in his hand.

“It’s a trap for mice. It works for flies too, in the summer. You just boil sugar and water to make the glue, the put a little honey over it to make it attractive to them.”

He wrinkles his nose. “I believe a mousetrap works just as well, dearie. And is considerably less messy.”

“But you’ll catch far more with a sweet trap than otherwise. Besides, this way you can let them go outside.” A beat, then, “Usually could, anyway. I have to kill the ones I catch.”

“As you should. They’re vermin.” But there’s no heat to his words, and he’s giving her that strange look again.

“They’re surviving,” she says. “Even if that’s inconvenient for me, I see no reason to punish them for it.”

“Your larder at home must be full of mice.”

At the mention of “home,” she frowns slightly. “No. The cats didn’t share my sympathy, I’m afraid.”

He rocks on his heels for a moment. “You couldn’t let them out in this weather, anyway. They’d freeze to death.”

“I’m sure that’s why they come  _in._ They’re desperate to escape the cold.” She nods to the trap. “Even if it means trading one death for another.”

He squints at the trap. Then, with a curl of his lip, he turns it into smoke. Belle doesn’t mind. All that means is that she’ll have to find a better place to put her next one. Directly on his sitting stool, perhaps.

Belatedly she realizes that that idea is borderline suicidal, if she’s to judge by his reaction to getting glue on his boot. Only…he’s calmed since he first came storming in. He seems bemused now more than anything, and Belle wonders if it’s because he’s realizing, as she is, that this is the longest conversation they’ve had since her arrival at the castle.

She’s suddenly aware that she’s still clutching a fistful of silverware. She bobs her head tightly, then begins returning them to their case.

In her periphery she sees him eyeing his fingers with distaste as he rubs them together. Glue from the trap, she realizes, as he brushes them over his shirt front. His focus shifts to the window for a moment, then falls back to Belle.

“Be more careful about where you place those things, will you? I’m not used to my floors being a safety hazard.”

“Yes, sir.”

He turns as if to go. “And don’t get so attached to the vermin. A soft heart like that will lead you to trouble, dearie.”

“Who are we without sympathy?” She slots the last of the silverware into place and closes the case.

“The kind of people without a rodent infestation,” he mutters.

If he was anyone else, she’d have smiled. Instead, she nods. “I’ll hide the traps better.”

He flaps his hand. “Don’t bother. Traps don’t solve the problem anyway. Better to try and find how they’re getting _in._ ”

Belle gestures to encompass the room. “It’s an enormous castle. I’m sure they’re getting in any number of ways.”

“Agreed.” He levels a finger at her. “And I expect you to find them.”

“What _?_  That would take weeks! And they’d just find new ways in as I go!”

He grins. “Not feeling so sympathetic towards them now, are you?”

She clenches her fists and draws a sharp breath, then lets it out in a long hiss. She won’t let him goad her. If he wants to punish her with silly tasks, that’s fine. It’s better than the alternative, anyway.

He steeples his fingers. “Or, if you prefer, you can keep them from getting  _in_ in the first place.”

She eyes him. “How would you suggest I go about doing that?”

Though as soon as the words leave her lips, she’s not certain she wants to know the answer.

“I’ve a potion,” he says. “That repels the little buggers when they smell it. If you apply it to the perimeter of the castle, it should keep the bulk of them from getting in.”

She raises her eyebrows and points to the window. “Outside, as in—out there?”

He nods, looking amused, but though his expression is light there’s a searching look in his eyes. “Well certainly not outside the  _walls_ , dearie, but yes. Though I can understand if you’d rather not. It’s colder than a witch’s teat out there. And I’m sure you’d be much cozier in here—”

“No! Uh, no. It’s fine. I’ll manage.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” She forces herself to smile, though it doesn’t take as much effort as it might have otherwise. He could have told her she’d have to go out and shovel snow from the walkways with her bare hands and she’d still kiss the ground when she got there.

“I’ll prepare the mixture,” he says. “But you’ll have to wait until the snow melts to put it down.”

Her smile vanishes. This high in the mountains, it could be weeks before the snow melts—assuming that more of it doesn’t fall in the meantime, as it’s been threatening to do for the last few days.

He clears his throat. “It would do you well to acquaint yourself with the grounds in the meantime. Just try not to freeze to death.” He smirks. “Or do. I’d be happy to warm you up.”

“I’m sure I’ll find a coat suitable somewhere in the castle,” she says flatly. “But thank you for the generous offer.”

* * *

For the first time in weeks, Belle’s feet meet the earth. Cold lances through the layers she wears as though she’d stepped outside clad in nothing but her skin. She gasps and clutches the lapels of her coat tighter about her neck, then bends nearly in half as a shiver wracks her body. Sunlight glares at her from the snow and she rears back again, blinking, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the first strong light they’ve seen since the morning she left her father’s castle.

She’s half blind and freezing her backside off, and she couldn’t be happier.

“Acquaint yourself with the grounds,” Rumplestiltskin had said. In this weather there’s little to see beyond white and whiter, but that doesn’t stop Belle from tugging one boot free of the snow and taking a lurching step in the direction of the gardens. Raising the other boot proves to be a trickier task. She yanks once, twice, then feels herself wobbling dangerously before, with a yelp, she topples over into the snow.

She laughs and leans over to yank her second foot free. It’s been years since she’s walked in snow this thick; it seldom falls so heavily in the south. At least she won’t want for practice at it, after this.

Getting to her feet proves to be as much of a challenge as walking. But after a false start or two she manages to rise. Still laughing at how foolish she must look, she smacks the snow off her coat and tries to arrange her feet into a more manageable distance.

Suddenly, she feels something like a pinch between her shoulder blades and the hair on her neck stands up. She whirls around as best she can with her calves buried in the snow, frowns, then looks up just in time to see a silhouette vanish from the window of the tower above.

Her face flushes. He’d been watching her. At least this time he’d had the decency to do it in person and not through a scrying glass as she suspects he does throughout the day, for this is not the first time she’s felt him hovering at the edge of her awareness like a mosquito that dances away before she can swat it. She just wishes she knew  _why_ he does it—he has her at his mercy, both in body and deed. Why not take what he wants, instead of spying on her in a way that leaves her agitated and tense?

Perhaps in her question lies the answer, she thinks sourly. She squares her shoulders. Let him gawk at her if he wants. She won’t let it ruin her first time out in weeks.

After a while, however, it seems the Wintersmith will do the job for him. Belle’s exploration of the gardens leaves her numb in places and aching in others, and eventually the only place she wants to see is the fireside, accompanied by a mug of hot tea and the thickest quilt she can find in Rumplestiltskin’s stores. Reluctantly, she makes her way back to the castle and resolves to venture out again when the grounds are a bit more hospitable.

The halls no longer feel as constricting as she goes to her chambers to hang up her damp, woolen coat and to trade her boots for the lighter shoes she wears for housework. Despite the chill in her bones, her spirit is warm and happy, and she even hums a tune as she walks to the kitchens.

The humming stops as soon as she steps through the kitchen doorway.

The fire in the hearth has already been stoked into a cheery blaze, and a kettle hangs from a trammel hook over the flames. She hears things shifting and clattering in the pantry, and before she can duck out of the doorway, Rumplestiltskin emerges with a loaf of bread in one hand and a wedge of cheese in the other.

He freezes for a moment when he sees her.  Then, he recovers and continues on to the counter. “Ah! Back already?”

 _You mean you weren’t watching?_ She wants to ask. Out loud she says, “It will take more than a single afternoon to see the grounds in this weather.”

He hums his assent. “Though it seems a single afternoon is all it takes for you to forget your duties.”

“What?”

He slants a glance at her, then gestures to the tea tray sitting on the corner of the counter, and suddenly his presence here makes much more sense. How had she let so much time slip away from her?

“I’m sorry,” she says stiffly. She watches his face, waiting for it to curl in glee as he informs her of what her punishment will be.

He nods. “Just see that it doesn’t happen again, dearie.” And that’s it. No narrowed brow, no sneer, no beckoning finger.

“Yes,” she says, and she’s so surprised that she forgets to tack “sir” on the end.

He collects his tray and leaves, his eyes lingering on her as he passes through the doorway. Naturally, he leaves a mess behind him, but if clearing a few utensils is the worst thing she’ll have to endure for forgetting to serve tea, she’s hardly going to complain.

Not until she steps into the kitchen and goes to clear the counter does she realize there’s a second cup of tea and a few slices of bread and cheese laid out neatly, waiting for her.

* * *

Of course his strange kindness could not last. He takes her to his chamber that same night.

“Enjoyed your day, dearie?” he asks. His hand sclose over her bare shoulders and he squeezes them gently.

She stares into the shadowed corners of his bedroom. “It was productive.”

“You went outside,” he says.

“Yes.”

He kisses the shell of her ear. “Better than being stuck in the castle?”

“It was cold.”

“That’s all?”

“It’s winter.”

His grip on her shoulders tightens. “I’d have thought that you’d enjoy a bit of fresh air. You haven’t been outside the castle since the day I brought you here.”

“It was…a nice change,” she concedes.

The answer seems to satisfy him, for he presses himself against her back and asks no further questions.

He is not happy long.

He’s gentle at first, in his way. He twirls her hair about his finger and whispers adoration in her ear as he coaxes and teases her body until he forces it to react. He implores her to act in kind—to touch him, to please him. But her caresses are perfunctory, and her eyes hold no passion. He frowns as though he’d expected otherwise; she doesn’t know why. This is hardly their first time.

Soon, his sweet words turn brittle. She can feel his frustration in the rough way he maneuvers her into position before thrusting into her. She swallows back a grunt of pain and closes her eyes. Breathe in, breathe out. She knows when he finishes, for he gasps and shudders against her. She does not look away from the canopy over his bed, however, until his thumb suddenly strokes over her cheek, and with alarm she realizes that at some point she’d started to cry.

She can see the guilt in his eyes as they flick over her face, and it makes her want to scream. “Don’t look at me like that,” she snaps.

His eyes dart away at once, as does his hand. He sits up, giving her room to do the same.

She takes him in: shoulders slumped, eyes downcast, too ashamed to even look at her. It’s pathetic.  _He’s_ pathetic. He’s a miserable, craven creature, and she has had enough.

She leans forward until he cannot ignore her presence in his periphery. She hisses a single syllable, but in it is contained months of pain, of fear, of grief. “ _Why_?”

He stares at his bed sheets. His throat bobs as he swallows. Belle can’t be sure if he’s fighting to keep his answer down or to bring it up.

When he finally speaks, his voice trembles with an emotion Belle can’t place. “You’re dismissed.”

* * *

When she returns to her room, she takes up a quill and pens a letter to her father. She tells him that she’s been allowed out, and of the cold, and of the beauty of the castle grounds wrapped in snow. And beneath it all, she tells him this:

_When you come, Papa, I’ll be ready._

Because spring is months away, and with hope, she will find a way to trick Rumplestiltskin into letting her leave the castle walls.

But with hope  _and_ hate?

Well. Come spring, the realms would never have to fear Rumplestiltskin again.


	3. Chapter 3

_Ogres are not men._ It is a truth that drips red on every scorched and twisted battlefield, lingers in the unseeing eyes of rawboned refugees, and echoes in the keening of mothers with slack and empty arms. Ogres know no pity, no mercy, and no regret. Their purpose— _­_ their  _pleasure—_  is to burn and tear and kill until there is nothing left but grief and ruin before they turn their slavering jaws to any unfortunate enough to have survived their initial onslaught.

Ogres are, on the whole, rather like Rumplestiltskin. And Belle knows well that beasts of their nature cannot be reasoned with: they can only be slain.

She squeezes her knees together to brace the cauldron between them before sawing her wash rag over the cauldron’s surface once more. Her ears fill with the grate of burlap on cast iron, and her heart is pleased to imagine that it’s Rumplestiltskin she’s cleansing the world of with every harsh stroke.

She can’t kill him, of course. Tales of those who faced the Dark One with steel and mettle are as old as the creature himself; her current predicament stands as testament to their success. If Belle’s memory of the more colorful stories holds true, the bones of those foolish knights and heroes were ground down to make the mortar of the very castle she now resides in. Nonsense she’s sure, but the fact remains that Rumplestiltskin is an old hand at crushing those who wish him ill.

It’s that knowledge that creeps in to dampen the fire that thoughts of freedom have stoked inside of her. How can she hope to outwit a creature as ancient and cunning as Rumplestiltskin? And if her treachery is discovered, what will become of her? Or worse, what will become of her father, who risks his life by seeking to save hers?

She throws her wash rag down. Her arm is sore and throbbing from the force of her scrubbing.  She rolls the cauldron aside to stand it at the edge of the small pile of dishware and cookware she has already cleaned. The scullery fire will dry them better than her rags will. In the meantime, she must find a task that leaves her less time to brood. If she is to escape this place she must not allow doubts to weaken her strength of purpose.

There’s a pot of the glue mixture she uses for her mouse traps in the larder. She fetches it out, along with a few pre-cut sheets of paper and an old basting brush. She’s aware that Rumplestiltskin isn’t fond of her solution to their mouse problem, but until he completes his promised potion, her method will have to suffice. Besides, constructing the traps requires patience and a careful hand, and with her mind thus focused her thoughts are less likely to run down unproductive paths.

She grabs the brush and the first sheet of paper, then sets about painting it with a thin coat of glue. She’ll treat three such sheets in this fashion before pressing them together, then applying a heavier coat on top of them to form the trap. Each layer must be allowed to dry before the next is applied, else the end result will be a sticky, soggy mess. There was an art to it, or so said the scullery boys back home who had explained the process to Belle when she grew curious about the squares of sweet-smelling paper tucked in odd corners of the kitchen.

Homesickness stings her breast as she works. But that was part of the reason why she’d conceived this project in the first place: she’d wanted to preserve some artifact of the life she left behind, even if it was something as small as a mouse trap. And now, of course, she had the additional satisfaction of knowing that their presence irritated Rumplestiltskin.

Her act of petty vengeance may well go unnoticed, however. A week has passed since her adventure onto the castle grounds and the painful evening that followed it, and Rumplestiltskin has hidden himself from her sight like a naughty child in fear of being hauled out for a whipping. She would have thought him gone from the castle entirely were it not for the empty dishes that appear in the scullery hours after she sets out his meals. And while she never complains about his absence, knowing the cause of his most recent disappearance sours her relief at the days she’s had to herself.

How can he take her so freely and with such vicious pleasure, then shy from her come morning? Is he merely disinterested in the tempers of a prize that did not turn out to be as meek and willing as he’d hoped? She suspects that’s the reason behind his shifting moods: why he offers her something like kindness in one moment, then counters it with spite and cruelty the next. He means to exhaust and terrify the part of her that resists him until it is easier to bow than to stand. Some night soon, he hopes, he will put her on her back and she will smile and swoon and cling to him at all the right times, and he will be satisfied that she is broken and he has won.

He’ll bed her corpse before she grants him that victory.

She finishes the first layers of several traps, then gingerly sets them on the floor to be dried and hardened by the heat of the embers. While she waits, the great problem her mind has been puzzling over for days rises once more to the forefront of her thoughts. She needs to find a way to leave the castle grounds without Rumplestiltskin noticing—or, more incredibly, with his permission.  Until the snow thaws she can’t properly explore the first option which, for the moment, leaves her with only the second option to consider.

Being allowed onto the castle grounds had been a pleasant shock, but it was a gesture born of utility, not generosity. The only practical reason for her to leave the estate is to fetch supplies in town, but Rumplestiltskin’s magic foils her there: all of her necessities replenish themselves. And she doubts he will consider any material comfort she desires worthy of giving her the chance to flee him. Perhaps if she expresses a wish to accompany him when he conducts business? But no—why would he believe such a thing when she makes no secret of her contempt for his company?

No, no. If she is to escape, she must find a reason for leaving that neither arouses his suspicions nor is so superficial that he refuses her request outright. But in the end she must still depend on Rumplestiltskin’s sympathy, and the thought of  _that_ is almost enough to make her laugh.

She sighs and kneels to check the traps.  They seem dry enough, and so she returns them to the counter to coat the sheets again. When that layer dries she applies the final coat of glue, then casts about for honey to finish the job until she realizes that she’s left it in the larder. She retrieves it and returns to her workspace. As she removes the lid of the canister holding it the honey’s sugared fragrance fills Belle’s nostrils, and she can’t help but dip her finger into it to steal a taste.

She presses the coated digit to her tongue and the honey melts over it. The burst of sweetness is a balm to her worries, and she closes her eyes and savors the flavor.  _Sweet._

 _Sweet._  Of course! Rodents aren’t lured by bitterness and bile; it’s the promise of something delightful, of some reward for their efforts that draws them close. As long as she appears to hate Rumplestiltskin he will continue to torment and mistrust her. But if he thinks that she’s finally given in to his desires, if she becomes the obedient, willing plaything that he wants…




She shudders. Even the thought of such a thing stirs rebellion in every part of her. And yet, what choice does she have? Of all the ideas she has pondered so far, it is the most promising: if she gives Rumplestiltskin what he wants and he comes to trust his hold on her, she might somehow earn her freedom. In a way, it’s a deal she’s making with herself: in exchange for a few weeks of false smiles, she’ll gain a lifetime without Rumplestiltskin. And as she thinks on it, she realizes that she could fare no worse than she already has since her arrival.

Her veins buzz with the thrill of resolve. She  _can_ do this. She must. She will prove her obedience, win his faith, then use his own misplaced affection to undo him.

She hastily finishes the traps, then arranges them on a tray to take them to the various parts of the castle where they are needed. As she starts to lift the tray, though, she reconsiders. Rumplestiltskin does hate the traps. It would be a gesture of goodwill to cease using them in the upper levels of the castle, and to rely on the more traditional—though far more unpleasant—spring traps until the potion he mentioned is completed.

Of course her effort might still be in vain. The problem remains of Rumplestiltskin hiding himself away. She wants to grasp him by the tails of his ridiculous coat and drag him through the corridors, to force him to face her, but no. That is not how this game is won. She will be patient. He will come to her eventually, she is sure of it, if not because he is weary of his isolation then because of his baser appetites.

And while she waits for him, she will plan.


	4. Chapter 4

Warmth wanders into the mountains, startling the world from its stupor. The snow retreats sullenly into the earth. The bedlam in the rookery dies down as the resident birds make hopeful ventures into the woods beyond the walls, where ice no longer weighs the branches and Belle imagines the few winter insects have once more begun to stir. The sheet of grey clouds that had spread over the region for weeks evaporates, leaving a sky the soft blue of Forget-Me-Nots and granting Belle her first unobstructed view of the sun as it reacquaints itself with places that only hours before had held nothing but clumps of white.

Belle feels as though her jailor has slunk off and forgotten to take the key. She explores the grounds in earnest, filling in her vague picture of the estate with details from her eyes, hands, and feet, and returns each time with her clothing muddy and stained. Something inside her cracks and loosens, unable to withstand days so fine, and for the first time in an age Belle feels like she can breathe again. But there’s bitterness at the edge of the wind that tells her this strange weather will soon return to its native climes. When the air once more bites the bright skies remain, fringing the castle’s heavy curtains in a halo of gold. Belle regards them with increasing resentment; their presence hadn’t bothered her as much when the view outside them was monochrome and frozen, but now she wants to savor the return of life to the mountainside, halting and brief though it may be.

Though Rumplestiltskin had issued a dire warning about the shrouded mirrors scattered around the castle, he’d never acknowledged the windows. Her curiosity at this had been superseded by her aversion to his company, but now she thinks nature has gifted her with her first move.

She could sense the moment he stole out of the west wing. His power was such that the world rearranges itself to accommodate his presence, and the effect of it doing so ripples far beyond the patch of earth he occupies. Belle isn’t sure if this is really the case or if her sharpened awareness of him makes it seem so. Either way, she knows that he is once more roaming the castle, even if she has yet to see him.

She seeks him out in the evening, when he is most likely to be found. The creak of his spinning wheel echoes out from the great hall. The sound stops at Belle’s approach, and for a moment she’s afraid that Rumplestiltskin has vanished once more. But no: when she pushes open the door and enters, the firelight falls over him sitting on his little stool, his body half-turned towards her. His eyes dart from her face to her hands to the floor and back in a nervous circuit that doesn’t stop until Belle is standing too close for him to do anything but look up at her.

“Good evening,” she says, as though it hasn’t been almost a fortnight since she last saw him.

His eyes are comically huge in his sockets as he returns the greeting. He’s clenching his spindle so hard that she can see the indents his long nails cut into his palm.

“I have a question,” she says.

 “Yes?”

She gestures to the curtains behind him. “Might I uncover the windows? The weather has been beautiful lately. It seems a pity not to enjoy it inside as well.”

Whatever question Rumplestiltskin had been expecting, that wasn’t it. He doesn’t relax, exactly, but he no longer gives off the air of an animal poised to bolt.

“The sun will pass,” he says slowly. “It will be cold again, and colder still without the curtains as a shield.”

She nods. “I don’t mind.”

He rolls the spindle back and forth between two fingers. At last he stills it and frowns.

“And how are you planning to get them down?”

“By ladder, I imagine.” It’s a touch more sarcastic than she means to be. The furrow between Rumplestiltskin’s eyebrows deepens, and she rallies with, “I think there’s one tall enough in the library.”

After a moment he shakes his head. “Not quite. In any case, the curtains are nailed down.”

“ _Nailed_ down? Why?”

He smiles without mirth. “Hasn’t anyone told you, dearie? I’m so wicked that the sun can’t bear the sight of me.”

She considers her next words carefully. There is an art to this thing. Too much and she will give herself away, too little and her plan will not succeed in time.

“Perhaps it can learn?” She says. She wills him to read her double meaning. She doesn’t have to fake the hope in her eyes.

He seems unable to choose between curiosity, suspicion, and disbelief. Finally he sheds all three and retreats into the safety of indifference.

“Do what you will.” The wheel’s gentle creaking begins again, serving as her dismissal. “Try not to destroy anything in the process, won’t you dearie?”

Easy enough to say, but difficult to avoid in practice. Grace was never Belle’s best quality, even less so when she’s attempting it on the rungs of a ladder. Rumplestiltskin was right: the one in the library was not quite tall enough to reach the topmost nails keeping the curtains down. More than once the ladder rocks perilously beneath her as she arches past the boundaries of its frame in her clumsy effort to coax the nails from the masonry with chisel and hammer claw.

It takes her the better part of an hour to unveil a single window. The noonday sun bursts into the hall like she’s unplugged a dam. Dust motes drift lazily in the light. There are still nine more windows left to go in this hallway alone.  The bright, restless energy that had buoyed her through the first one flags as she realizes the breadth of the undertaking before her. Even knowing that she has nothing _but_ time to complete it is of little comfort.

By the third day the pads of her thumb and forefinger and torn and swollen from one too many errant encounters with the sharp edges of her tools. Her arms burn from hauling the ladder up and down stairs, through one endless hall after another. She has lost count of the number of times she’s almost pitched off the ladder rungs when she tugging too vigorously on a nail. And through it all she’s aware of the tickle-in-her-spine feeling of being watched. It clings to her from the instant she leaves her room in the morning and stays until she ceases the effort of uncloaking the windows for the day. At some moments, particularly after the ladder sways, the sensation is so intense that she’s certain if she turns around she’ll see Rumplestiltskin standing there. He never is.

Dingy clouds form a cataract over the sky. The warm spell ends as suddenly as it arrived, and as Rumplestiltskin predicted the chill leeches through the window panes and stretches cautious tendrils into the castle. Belle takes to wearing a shawl as she works. She’s opened all of the windows in the corridors of the East wing, and in the library.  As a mercy to her hands and her sanity, she decided early on not to bother with the windows in the spare rooms neither of them used. She’s tempted to abandon the project entirely, or at least forestall it for a week or two, but she feels as though she’s scaling a mountainside, and if she can push herself just a little farther she’ll finally reach the summit.

Besides, this is about more than her desire to brighten the castle’s murky halls. Though Rumplestiltskin makes only cursory inquiries into her progress on the few occasions she sees him, she can read bafflement in his eyes. One thing she has learned about Rumplestiltskin: he takes for granted that the world and everything in it follow the careful orbits he’s drafted for them. He does not brook outliers long, if at all. And Belle’s can only take Rumplestiltskin’s sudden interest in her as a sign that her current pursuit violates his every notion of common sense.

That, in turn, is the basis of her first move: she’ll wait until his curiosity bubbles over and he finally confronts her about her mad quest to uncover the hundred-some windows in the castle and bring the daylight in, at which point she’ll engage him in some cautious teasing that will pique his interest and leave him wanting to see more of this new side of his housekeeper.

What she doesn’t account for is the moment when she places a foot wrong and she it slips off the ladder rung. She overcorrects by trying to wheel away from the wall and grasping for the curtain, but that only makes the ladder wobble harder, then begin an inexorable dive towards the ground.

All at once, she’s standing on the floor. The tail end of the gasp she’d let out as she started to fall merges with the top of the ladder’s sharp crack as it hit the opposite wall. To her amazement it doesn’t snap. Had she still been attached to it, she wouldn’t have been so lucky.

“A broken neck would be unbecoming on you, dearie.” Rumplestiltskin says. The words are casual, but there’s an unmistakable thread of fear in them.

“ _Thank you_ ,” she says with such urgency that Rumplestiltskin seems taken aback. He nods stiffly. His fingers flex as though they’re trying to escape in different directions at once.

“Yes. No matter.”

He shifts on his feet and looks around as though he’s not sure what he ought to be doing now that the crisis is over. This isn’t the brilliantly crafted seduction she’d been hoping for. Why had she ever thought this plan would work? She could scarcely manage the _allemande_ , further less jumping around on ladders!

The thunder in her chest echoes through her ears, and it’s a while before she realizes that he’s spoken to her again. She blinks at him, for once too startled to do anything when he takes her hands and turns them over gently.

Her fingers are all blistered and abused to some degree now. Tugging out the nails is the closest to hard labor Belle has ever been, and she can now appreciate why the workers and servants back home all had thick, calloused hands.

A tingle starts in her fingers and spreads all the way up her arms. It doesn’t stop until several seconds after he releases her. As Belle watches, the cuts and blemishes that had taken root on her palms vanish, leaving fresh, pink skin.

“Your dedication is admirable, but perhaps you’re not suited to this particular task,” Rumplestiltskin says.

He waves his hand and there’s a great murmur of fabric, like a collective gasp turned low. The curtains in the room—the conservatory, which she visits infrequently whenever she gets the urge to try and redeem herself at the grand piano—ripple open, and suddenly they are standing in grey, watery daylight.

On some level she knew that he was perfectly capable of doing that the entire time, but to see him accomplish in a gesture what it had taken her days to do floods her with irritation. She knows it’s partly due to the fear still sloshing in her veins. With some effort she composes herself.

“Are you all right?” Rumplestiltskin asks.

“Yes,” she says. “Thank you, again.”

Movement outside the newly revealed window catches her eye. Topiary animals roam the brittle, yellow lawn, their gaits made strange by the winding branches serving at their feet. They’d come to life as the snow melted; to her amazement, during her earlier exploration of the grounds Belle had watched one, a verdant elephant, unfurl its long trunk and shake the snow from its back with a sound like a boulder crashing through a hedge.

“Still kicking, are they?”

His voice jars her from her reverie. She realizes that Rumplestiltskin has followed her gaze, and he’s watching the topiaries as well.

“Why did you make them?”

“I’m testing a spell.”

“Did it work?”

He shrugs. “I’ll know when they fall. _If_ they fall. That’s what I’m testing—substitutiary locomotion. Giving life to things without. Ideally, forever.”

“Like golems,” she says.

He looks impressed. “Indeed. But golems can be rendered inert if the inscription on their forehead is scrubbed out or altered. Not an easy feat, but still a great flaw—one that my animals don’t suffer from.”

It doesn’t take Belle long to realize that such a spell that could make an unstoppable army—just the sort of thing no shortage of warring kings would be interested in. She imagines that’s Rumplestiltskin’s reasoning too, for when she mentions it he just smiles and says that she’s much too clever for her own good.

“Though not too clever to fall off of ladders, apparently,” he continues. His frown is back, and now that the tension of the moment just after her fall has broken, there’s real sternness in his voice as well.

“You did nail the curtains down,” she points out. She wants to be irritated, but the energy for it has drained along with her fear. She feels strangely empty; even her hate towards Rumplestiltskin has been briefly dulled by his unexpected heroism. She supposes that’s why he was watching her: gods forbid he lose his investment by means of her splitting her skull open on the stones.

His lip curls. “I didn’t expect anyone to kill themselves trying to open them.”

“Well, it’s done.” She gestures into the room. “You can’t say it isn’t cheerier in here.”

“It’s not meant to be cheery. It’s the _Dark_ Castle.”

Suddenly, she spies her opportunity. Her original plan is lost, but she can still salvage this. She tucks the wayward strands of her braid behind her ear. She smiles like she’s trying it on for the first time, and in a way she is.

“Sometimes, things change.” She says.

The words are encouraging if not warm, but to him she’s never been either. When he turns to her, startled, she drops her eyes as though suddenly shy. For a moment Rumplestiltskin is frozen, a statue carved from disbelief. His recovery isn’t graceful. His hands are seized by spasms of nervous energy; he tries to weave them together over his stomach, but they shake apart and flutter through the air, then duck towards his chest like they’re frightened of straying too far from home.

Belle takes that as a positive sign.

* * *

To her great relief, if she’s willing to admit it to herself, she wakes the following morning to find that all of the curtains in the castle are neatly pinned back, allowing in the bleak winter sun. Snow is falling once more in big, fluffy flakes that splat against the glass when the wind takes them castleward. The bright days of the past week are a dream now, but she barely notices the change.

Her plan is working. She’s no longer openly hostile to Rumplestiltskin, but his presence still makes her anxious and careful, neither of which she tries to hide. It would be unrealistic for her to go from hissing and spitting one moment to swooning over him the next. It’s far better for her credibility and for her ability to stomach this plan that she proceeds slowly—but not _too_ slowly.

She strews kindness like breadcrumbs. A pile of fresh straw in his basket. His clothes laundered and neatly folded instead of left in a pile on the wash room table. A hesitant smile or even a laugh where before he’d have received only a dour look. The gestures coax him into a sort of routine—once she could have roamed the castle all day and never encountered him, but now he appears regularly for tea and meals, and more often than not she finds him in the great hall, poring over a book or spinning at his wheel. And when she does encounter him, no longer is her foremost thought to flee. She allows him to draw her into conversation, and vice versa. They develop a fragile rapport.

It’s easier than she thought it would be. Is Rumplestiltskin so desperate to have her loyalty that he can’t see her friendliness for what it was? Or maybe Belle is even better at this game than she thought she would be. She finds herself looking forward to seeing Rumplestiltskin so that she can once more savor the warm, secret thrill of success. When her father writes to inquire about her progress, Belle has no shortage of good news for him.

Her true test arrives after dinner one evening. Belle’s face is flushed with the wine she’s drunk. Rumplestiltskin finishes off a bawdy tale about a woman and swan with a grand flourish, and Belle finds herself truly laughing. It fizzes up through her like champagne and leaves her glowing afterward. Rumplestiltskin grins in turn, and the change it brings over his demeanor is so drastic that for a moment she wishes he’d show happiness more often.

That’s when she decides she’s had enough wine. That’s also when he decides to ask, not command, that she join him in his chambers that evening.

It’s like a great hand reached into her chest and ripped the scab off her heart. All the fear and revulsion she’s so successfully masked these past few weeks rushes back. Her smile freezes on her face. Rumplestiltskin watches her, his own smile fading as the seconds tick by.

She can’t disappoint him. To take a stand now is to undo all the progress she’s made, and she’s not sure she’ll be able to make it up in time.

“All right,” she says. She reaches for her glass. On second thought, more wine it is.


	5. Chapter 5

She pushes in Rumplestiltskin’s door a little while after dinner. This moment had to come. How can Rumplestiltskin be convinced of her sincerity if she doesn’t lie with him without complaint? She has shared his bed more times than she cares to count. The only difference now is that she too has a stake in their coupling.

He’s sitting up on his mattress when she enters, his form barely lit by the light of the lone candelabra that stands against the wall between the door and his bedside.  Even when her eyes adjust to the darkness the only part of him she can see clearly are his eyes, which catch the candles’ glow and seem to shine from within like a cat’s.

She recognizes the look he gives her: it’s the same strange mix of amazement and trepidation he’s worn over the course of all of their recent conversations. She’d be surprised too if someone she had treated so poorly appeared to warm to her.

Dying embers crack in the fireplace across the room. His eyes skirt over hers, then fall away. She watches his fingers burrow into the sheets. Unbidden, an image of her last night here surfaces: those same fingers digging purplish craters into her calf.

“Did you enjoy your meal?” He asks, snapping her from her thoughts.

Enjoyed it? She would hope so, since she was the one who prepared it. But he looks at her so earnestly that at length she realizes he’s interested not in her opinion of the food, but of his company.

“I did,” she says.  _In a way. Until_ this. “I haven’t shared a meal since I left my father’s home. It’s…nice, to do so again.”

“Yes. Yes, of course.” He pauses for a long moment. When he speaks again, he addresses it to the wrinkles in the bedding. “I’m glad that you’ve found ways to make your life here more bearable, Belle.”

She starts at that. She can’t remember the last time he used her name. He calls her dearie if he calls her anything, and even then only when he’s mocking her.

“Things here are very different from what I knew,” she says cautiously, trying to gauge where his mood is shifting. “And…it’s been difficult to adjust. But if I’m to spend the rest of my life here, I must try.”

The corner of his lip twitches up. “Not one to shy from a challenge, are you?”

 _Oh Rumplestiltskin, you have no idea._ “Never. Much to the vexation of some.”

“Those people should be thanking you now.”

She tilts her head, frowns.

“Were it not for your sacrifice, dearie, they’d be dead.”

“One does what one must,” she says quietly. “There were no other options.”

“There are always other options.” His voice is sharp, startling her. Seeing this, his next words emerge at a more level tone. “The question is which choice you will regret the least.”

_Three score lives balance on your honor, Belle. Are their deaths worth your freedom?_

Why were they even having this conversation? There was business to attend to, and the sooner they were done the better.

 “I’ve chosen to make my home here,” she says, “as best I can.”

Then, before she has time to stop herself, she rests a hand on his thigh.

She meets his wide-eyed gaze, her own unblinking. His muscles are tight as bobstays beneath her palm. “And I will do what is necessary to make that happen.”

He looks down at her hand like he can’t believe it’s there. Then, slowly, he rests his hand over hers.

“I told you, once, that I would like you to enjoy this,” he says quietly. “I meant that. I’d hoped…”  He trails off, shakes his head. “I would please you, Belle, if you would let me.”

She hesitates. He can’t be seeking her permission, not truly. If she refuses him he will sneer, take his pleasure, then discard her. Yet she thinks of their last time together—of his bowed back, of the pitiful tremble in his voice. Of the fact that he couldn’t face her for weeks afterward, and when he finally did, it was with the same anxiety he shows now.

_Why?_

Words will betray her here. Instead, when his eyes slide up to meet hers, she nods.

His tongue flicks out over his lips. Then, he tucks his fingers beneath her chin and tilts her head up.

They’ve seldom kissed since her first night here. She never reciprocates, and she imagines Rumpelstiltskin grew tired of trying to kiss a dead fish. Even now she is slow to react, half because she’s trying to remember how. Her few, furtive kisses with Gaston in the hidden corners of her father’s estate seem so long ago.

Their lips mash awkwardly until Rumplestiltskin leans back. Belle twists the fabric of her nightgown in her fist. Even if she has no desire to kiss him, that doesn’t mean she wants to look foolish in the attempt.

“Sorry,” she says, feeling her cheeks flush. “I haven’t had much practice.”

He strokes her cheek. “It’s all right.” Then, softly, “Here.”

His fingers thread through her hair and he makes minute adjustments to the angle of her head until their mouths slot together like a puzzle. He moves slower this time, allowing her to catch on to the rhythm he’s setting. She admits that his lips are softer than the texture of his skin makes them appear.  On the whole, the experience is not unpleasant.

The key, she decides, is to disassociate him from whatever her body is feeling. It could be Gaston’s tongue sliding into her mouth, bringing with it the faint taste of the wine they’d shared at dinner, or it could be that sinewy blacksmith’s apprentice from town cupping her breast through the stiff cotton of her nightgown.

But it’s hard to maintain the illusion with Rumplestiltskin’s pebbled skin touching hers so intimately. And when she meets his strange eyes, imagining him as anyone else seems laughable.

“Here?” He asks. His mouth is at the point where the sharp plane beneath her chin fades into her neck. It’s one of many places where her body’s responses had betrayed her pleasure in the past. But now she acknowledges it with a murmur of assent. His tongue slides wetly over her skin, sending little flutters of warmth through her. She gently presses his scalp to encourage him. He must believe she wants this.

He lowers her to the bed. He abandons her neck, focusing instead on kissing his way around the neckline of her nightgown. His thumb hooks under the hem of her gown and begins sliding it up her thigh, over her hip, past her breasts. Goosebumps rise where the cool air touches her. She shivers.

When the gown is free from her body and tossed aside, Rumplestiltskin sits back on his ankles to admire her. It’s another thing he hasn’t done in a while: generally he prefers her facing away from him. Perhaps he’s willing to look her in the eye now that she’s a proper conquest?

His fingers skirt over the sides of her belly and she yelps, then giggles. He repeats the motion, earning him a look of mild irritation when her laughter calms. He smirks.

“No? All right, then—tell me what you like.”

She blinks. “What?”

“Tell me what pleases you,” he says. His fingers trace patterns on the curve of her ribs beneath her breasts, which has a far different effect than his tickling had.

“I--” she shakes her head. “Don’t you know? All this time, you’ve--”

“--done things I shouldn’t have,” he says firmly. “My knowledge was ill gained.”

She stares at him. He takes her hand and lays it atop his, then spreads his hand over her belly.

“Guide me, Belle.”

Not until lungs ache in protest does she realize that she’s forgotten to breathe.

This must be a joke, or a trick, or— _something,_ because he cannot be sincere. Why now, after all this time, does he show concern for her welfare? What has he to gain from it?

But his expression reveals nothing, and she will get no answers by gawking at him. Wordlessly, she draws his hand down her belly, over the thatch of curls below her bellybutton, then lower still, to the slick skin between her legs.

Despite his declaration, she’s certain that he cheats here. His fingers need little prompting to assume a placement and rhythm that makes her quiver from her hair to her toes.

“Is it good, dearie?” He murmurs. As if he can’t tell from the way she rocks against him. “You needn’t be so quiet.”

She’s noiseless out of habit, but at his prompting, she reluctantly releases the little sounds she would otherwise hide from him: sighs and whimpers, moans and squeaks. He leans over her, perhaps meaning to kiss her again, but she tugs him down by the front of his nightshirt to guide his mouth to her breast. She feels a little thrill at that—she beds the strongest being in the world, and she leads him by his nightclothes!

Rumplestiltskin, for his part, seems to follow her guidance in earnest. When his fingers press into her too fast, too soon he withdraws them before she’s even finished her pained hiss. And when she asks if he might go slower, please, he apologizes, nods, and resumes his attentions at a pace that soon pulses pleasure through her like a second heartbeat.

His teeth, fingers, and tongue buoy her towards a climax of her own crafting, and even if this is not the kind of power she’d hoped to wield over him, to have any power where none existed prior is a heady thing. When she comes her hands and heels dig into him, pinning him in place, leaving him no option but to continue his ministrations until her tremors subside. But the smile he gives her when she releases him suggests that he doesn’t find his predicament much of a hardship at all.

“Better?” he asks. “Than…before?”

She understands the note of worry on the last word. She nods. To her surprise, she means it.

“Wait,” she says. His hands freeze at the hem of his nightshirt. Even in the darkness she can make out his hardness through the fabric.

She sits up. It’s time to test his dedication to whatever game he’s playing. She puts a hand to his chest and pushes firmly until he lies back. She straddles him. He blinks up at her, brow furrowed.

“It would please me to…do it myself.”

The confusion in his eyes abates, and intrigue takes its place. She draws a shaky breath, then rucks up the front of his nightshirt.

His member stands tall over his stomach. Her past experiences with him have taught her that its length is deceptively pliable when aroused, but it’s no less a cudgel by which he might assert his claim over her.

It does not seem  _so_ imposing from this vantage, however. Rumplestiltskin is breathing shallowly, looking from her face to his member. He thinks she'll do him ill. She tamps down the urge to smirk. _Correct guess, wrong context._

Instead she rises up on her knees and positions herself over him in a way that allows her to reach behind and guide him inside of her. Rumplestiltskin’s hands fly to her hips when she touches him, and for a second she thinks that he’s going to dislodge her, flip her on her back, and take her as he usually does. But his fingers just flex and curl eagerly against her skin, and when she finally sinks down onto him he lets out a long sigh like he’s been holding his breath.

There’s something exciting about seeing him stretched beneath her, and watching the way his face and body react as she rises and drops at her own pace. Is this what he feels on those occasions when he pins her to the bed and looms over her? She’s never been on top before; she thinks she can understand the allure now.

From here she can adjust the angle and depth of her thrusts, and touch herself in ways that make her shiver. One of Rumplestiltskin’s hands finds its way to her breast as it sways over him. She starts to arch into him, then she rears back in shame. She’s not meant to  _actually_ enjoy this. It’s a show for his pleasure, and nothing more.

But her recoil wounds him. His hands drop her thighs, and she sees his throat bob as he swallows.

“I’m sorry, Belle,” he says. His face mirrors the regret in his tone. “That I was cruel to you in this. After last time, I…”

“Enough,” she says. There’s a lump in her throat, suddenly, and her eyes sting. Why was he doing this  _now,_  after she’d already made her resolutions and set her mind against him? “Not now.”

There’s a mixture of fear and hope in his expression that’s so sincere she wants to claw his eyes out. It’s too late for him to look at her like that, she won’t take it, she has to make him  _stop—_

She crashes her lips against his and Rumplestiltskin grunts in surprise; he’d probably thought she was going to tear his face off with her teeth. (Tempting.)Her hands fist his hair and she hopes it bloody hurts, but no, he can’t even grant her that, because he moans into her mouth and bares his neck to her so that she can bite, suckle, and leave muted splotches on the skin there-- let  _him_ bear a mark of pain for once. She imagines ripping his throat open right here, right now, and she digs her teeth in where she can feel his pulse flowing the fastest. He clasps her buttocks and gasps her name (“ _Gods,_ Belle,”) as he jerks, then trembles as he empties himself into her.

Their heavy breaths mingle in the silence. Rumplestiltskin strokes her back in hesitant, gentle circles, as if he’s afraid she’ll throw him off at any moment. She isn’t sure whether she wants to cry or scream.

“Belle?” he asks.

She raises herself up and off of him, then sits on the mattress. Rumplestiltskin does likewise.

She doesn’t know what her face shows in this moment, but it makes Rumplestiltskin frown. He reaches out a hand to touch her face, then draws it back.

“Are you… all right?” he asks. “Have I hurt you?”

She swallows thickly and tries to smile. “No. You didn’t.”

_That’s the problem._


	6. Chapter 6

The next morning grants Belle a few muzzy, blissful seconds where the night before is clouded by the fading haze of dreams, and she can sprawl beneath her thick comforter, blink blearily into the morning light as is glows through her curtains, and wait for her limbs and the muscles within revive themselves.

But there’s an ache in her thighs that wasn’t there the day before, and all at once memories flood her: her hands guiding his, murmured apologies, her animal lunge for his throat. It’s still too early for the anger she’d felt then to resurface, but she knows it’s stewing somewhere.

She curls up and presses the heels of her palms to her eyes.  _Why?_ Had Rumplestiltskin thought that his show of remorse would make up for everything she’d endured since her arrival? It was much too late for that.

She kicks off her sheet, jams her feet into her slippers, then stalks to the basin on her vanity to splash some water on her face. He couldn’t be truly sorry anyway. If he had been, he wouldn’t have brought her to his bed before he apologized.

 _But you didn’t_ have  _to go. He asked you, didn’t he? You could have refused._

How was she to know that? After cleaning her teeth with some mint vinegar and a cloth, she shrugged out of her nightgown and flung it onto her bed. She’d had no choice but to join him on prior evenings. Why should yesterday have been any different, no matter how he phrased his request?

She flicks through the options in her wardrobe and selects one of her comfier work gowns. In any case, refusing him would have meant shattering the relationship she was trying to forge with him. The relationship she was forging because she wanted to get  _away_ from him, not because she wanted to know him better.

_And if she’d found, in the course of her plot, that he wasn’t as horrible as she expected…_

What she needs to do is work. Her mind can’t wander when it’s needed for a task, and maybe when the events of the prior evening are less raw she’ll be able to refocus on what’s important. But first: breakfast. Sadly, her body can’t run on indignation alone.

She throws her hair into a hasty braid, trades her slippers for her shoes, then heads to the kitchens. She’ll have something quick like bread and jam, then it’s straight to…the library. Yes,  _there’s_ a job that will surely keep her occupied, one way or the other.

She strides into the kitchen and stops short as if she’s hit a wall. Rumplestiltskin stands at the counter, his hands frozen midway through lifting a tray of covered platters. He looks at Belle with a flash of— _guilt? –_ before setting the tray down again.

“Good morning, dearie.”

“Good morning,” she says. She furrows her brow first at him, then the tray. “You made breakfast?”

To her knowledge Rumplestiltskin seldom  _woke_ this early, further less ate; he didn’t even take his tea until two o’ clock.

“Yes. I…made it for you.”

“For me?”

He nods. “I was going to bring it to you.” His lip quirks. “You rose sooner than I expected.”

“I—thank you,” she says, shaking her head. “But…you woke up just to make me breakfast?”

He shrugs and spreads his hands. “You’d prefer porridge and toast?”

She walks over. Rumplestiltskin, in turn, steps back so that when she stops there’s still more than an arm length between them. But the intensity of his focus makes him feel far closer. She hunches her shoulders and reaches forward to lift the cover of the largest dish, revealing a plate set with a full breakfast, the likes of which she hasn’t had since leaving her father’s home: there’s bacon, poached eggs, black pudding, fried tomatoes, and two hearty slices of sweet fried toast covered in fresh berries and powdered sugar. Alongside the plate are a small, ornate teapot and a mug, accompanied by a little dish of sugar cubes.

A savory, buttery aroma fills the air. It isn’t until she catches Rumplestiltskin’s smug grin that she realizes she’s been gawking at the plate. To make matters worse, her stomach growls loud enough to rattle the stones.

“I think I’ll leave you to it, dearie,” he says, bobbing his head. He passes her to leave.

“Wait!” she says. “You didn’t make any for yourself?”

“I’m not very hungry.” Then, shrugging, “I ate earlier. Or later, I suppose, depending on your perspective.”

She frowns. “You didn’t sleep?”

A beat, then, “I seldom do.”

_Sleep after he summons her, or sleep at all?_

His hands begin their restless flutter at his sides. “Last night, you—”

“Not now.” She closes her eyes. Suddenly, she doesn’t even have the energy to be pretend to be kind. “Please. It’s too early.”

“My apologies,” he says coolly. “I won’t disturb you any longer. Enjoy your meal.”

Guilt plucks at her after he’s gone and that, in turn, irritates her. What has he done to deserve her kindness? Made her breakfast, yes, but that’s hardly enough. For the sake of her plan she’ll be nice to him later, but right now the only thing she wants is for him to be as far away as possible.

She slices her toast, stabs a piece, and pops it in her mouth. The mingled flavors of butter, cinnamon, and sugar burst on her tongue; compared to the bland dishes she usually prepares for herself, it tastes like something from a fairy’s table. She downs three more pieces in rapid succession before she catches herself and she leans away from the plate, blushing even though there’s no one to see her poor manners.

Did he make this with his own two hands, or eith magic? She guesses the latter, as the hearth shows no signs of recent use. Less of an effort, then, but still more thoughtful than she’d believed him capable of.

_He’s made you a meal before, hasn’t he? Don’t you remember your first day in the snow?_

Well…yes. That had been thoughtful, too. She hadn’t realized it at the time, afraid as she was of his ire, nor has she thought of it since. Why is she even thinking of it now? One’s personality doesn’t change overnight, and Rumplestiltskin has never been known for anything but his madness and cruelty. When he grows weary of her, things will be as they were before. She will be gone before that happens.

Even if he can conjure up a startlingly good black pudding.   

* * *

Even now when Belle enters the library, her breath catches in her throat. Books—hundreds of them, perhaps more than a thousand—fill every scrap of wall space that isn’t occupied by a window, a fixture, or a door, forming a seamless tapestry of shape and color that’s almost dizzying to look at.

Once you look past the loveliness, though, you realize that there’s a dark truth within the cases. Volume sets are scattered across several shelves; books on medicine stand next to religious screeds; some books haven’t even been placed back into the slot they’ve been plucked from, and have instead been shoved into the space between the top of their fellows and the bottom of the next shelf.

She expects such poor treatment from a man like Gaston, who saw little value in letters, but not from Rumplestiltskin, whose trade relies on careful manipulation of words both written and spoken. She’d been so horrified by the state of the place that she’d made it her mission from the first day she found it to re-organize the books and put everything to rights. It’s a daunting task, though not an unpleasant one, and Belle often ends up here at least once a day intending to make some headway into the process. More often than not she manages to sort a pile or two before something catches her eye and she arrives where she is now: scrunched in the corner of the settee with a book spread in her lap. Ordinarily her easy distraction would bother her, but she doesn’t much care  _what_ her mind is engrossed with as long as it isn’t turning over thoughts of last night and this morning.

The sun is already past its zenith when she looks up from her book again. At first she isn’t sure what has drawn her attention, but then she spies it: a long, dark streak streaming down the road to the castle, its shape broken by the gnarled branches overhanging the path.

“A carriage?” she murmurs. Who was bold enough to seek out the Dark One in his own domain?

She sits up to watch its approach. It breaks out from the beneath the tree line and forms a sleek, inky silhouette against the snow. Its retinue is similarly garbed. With prickling unease she realizes that even their faces are cloaked in shadow.

The library door creaks. Rumplestiltskin steps in, a frown etched on his face. He waves her down when she starts to rise; instead, he joins her at the window.

“It would seem I have a guest,” he says, though he doesn’t sound pleased about the prospect. The carriage stops at the gates, and the horseman fan out to encircle the coach. It seems a little silly. The only thing they have to fear here is Rumplestiltskin, and she doubts very much that a few men on horseback would be enough to fend him off if he put his mind to slaying whoever occupied the coach.

“You weren’t expecting them?” she asks.

“I’m afraid this particular guest seldom does me the courtesy of confirming their welcome.”

The coachman helps a woman out onto the snow. Unlike her retinue she wears no mask; her face is a pale blotch against her black clothing. From this distance Belle can’t make out any of her features.

“We’ll be meeting in the great hall,” he says, without taking his eyes off the figure of the woman as the castle gates swing open and she proceeds up the long walk to the main doors. “See that you don’t disturb us.”

“I won’t,” she says, though she feels a pang of disappointment. This woman is the first human being she’s seen in months. Mightn’t she at least introduce herself?

But he’s already turned away. Still upset from this morning, she guesses, and there’s another pang of guilt that she tamps down. She sighs and watches the woman until the jutting architecture of the castle blocks her from view. Belle then clambers off the settee and creeps into the hall. Though the entrance is a floor down, the castle is quiet enough that she hears the sharp echo of the main doors swinging open. She cranes her neck around the corner, hoping to pick up a snatch of conversation, but there’s only a whisper of footsteps. The doors close once more. Then, there’s silence.

Glumly, she returns to the library and resumes reading her book. But every few sentences she finds her mind wandering back to Rumplestiltskin and his guest. He’d shown no desire to meet with her, yet he hadn’t sent her away. And what business brought her to his door? He’d implied they’d held such meetings in the past. Was she friend, foe, or even—Belle shudders—a dalliance?

Finally, she marks her page with a scrap of parchment and sets it on the table. She needs something else to keep herself busy, otherwise she’ll was the afternoon musing about whatever is happening in the great hall.

In the end she returns to the kitchens. After her large breakfast she isn’t particularly hungry, but she could do with some more tea. She stokes the fire and puts on the kettle. After a few minutes it hisses and spits out a plume of steam. She fetches it out and puts the tea leaves in to steep.  She’s just picked up the kettle to pour herself a cup when she hears the scuff of a shoe and a voice pipes up from the doorway.

“I’m sorry, dear. I didn’t expect anyone to be here.”

Belle gasps and turns. The woman from the coach stands with her head cocked and one sharp eyebrow arched.

“Yes. I’m his…housekeeper. Can I help you?” Belle asks.

The woman smiles. Her lips are a red shock against pale, perfect contours of her face.

“I believe you can,” the woman says. She nods at Belle’s midsection, and Belle looks down. She’d forgotten she was holding the teapot.

“Oh—you’d like some tea?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.” The woman half shrugs and advances into the kitchen. “We ran out upstairs, you see.”

Belle glances at the doorway. “Where’s Rumplestiltskin?”

“Oh, just looking up something in his tower. But who knows how long that will take?  _You’ve_ seen how he keeps the place.” The woman shakes her head. Then, when she notices Belle’s blank look, “Haven’t you? Oh, dear. You must not have been here for very long. I don’t envy you tidying up that place.”

How much could she tell this woman? “It’s a large castle,” she says carefully as she fetches a second tea cup from the cupboard. “I imagine there are still a few places I haven’t seen.”

The woman hums thoughtfully. Belle feels her watching as she pours the tea; when she turns to pass the cup, the woman accepts it with a nod of thanks, but doesn’t drink. “Tell me, dear, what’s your name?”

Belle sets the teapot on the counter. Her name is only a little truth. What harm could it do?

 “Belle.”

 “Belle?” The woman’s lips purse. Then, she gasps. “Of Embourie? Daughter of Duke Pern?”

Belle nods. “You’ve heard of me?”

The woman’s eyes widen. “My dear, in all the Southlands no duchy but Embourie survived the ogres’ march.  A miracle? Perhaps. But, more likely, a deal—and it wasn’t long before the nature of it spread.” She picks up her cup, but doesn’t drink from it. “I confess that this one surprised me. I’ve never known Rumple to bargain for such…personal arrangements.”

_Rumple?_

She gives Belle an appraising look. Then, her expression softens. She leans in as if she and Belle are old friends.

“Honestly, dear, working with him is bad enough. I can’t imagine having to _live_  with him, further less…” She shakes her head. “Tell me, how are you faring?”

Belle hesitates and glances around. “Well, thank you. It’s…taken some time to adjust, of course.”

“I’m sure.” The woman’s lip curls. “There’s nothing easy about being forced to warm a stranger’s bed.”

Even Rumplestiltskin hadn’t laid out the terms of their agreement so plainly. Color rises in Belle’s cheeks.

“Are you his friend?” She blurts out. Anything to change the course of their conversation. “You seem to know him well.”

She laughs; it’s a high, cutting sound, like an out of tune violin. “His  _friend_? That would be generous, I’m afraid. He’s more of a family acquaintance. We’ve dealt often, but that’s it. And as for knowing him—” She takes a sip of her tea and looks thoughtful.  “I know him better than most, but I doubt anyone knows him better than you.”

Belle’s nails dig into the wood of the counter. “Please, I’d rather not—”

“I suppose it’s not  _too_ surprising. He’s still a man beneath it all, and he was bound to get lonely sometime. It’s just a shame that you had to suffer for it.”

Another protest rises to Belle’s lips, but the woman’s words give her pause. “Beneath it all? What do you mean?”

“Didn’t you know? His magic stems from a powerful curse. He was once as human as you and I, but now…” She gestures vaguely. “Well. You’ve seen it for yourself.”

Belle’s eyes widen. She’s always believed the Dark One to be an evil sprung full grown from the bowels of the earth, just as fairies are birthed from the laughter of babes. But curses, even minor ones, are pitiless, vicious things. What terrible price must Rumplestiltskin have paid to come by the power he wields now?

Belle checks over her shoulder, then lowers her voice. “If that’s the case, is there no way the curse might be broken?”  Then, realizing how that must sound, she hurriedly adds, “I mean, he’s not  _so_ bad, it’s just—”

The woman holds up a hand, bidding her to say no more. Her smile doesn’t match the glint in her eye, and Belle watches her warily as the woman leans over to whisper in her ear.

 “I don’t know if it can be broken. But if the rumors are true, it can be  _controlled_. They say there’s a dagger—”

“ _Regina_.”

Belle rears back so fast that her forehead collides audibly with the woman’s. The woman sputters and back steps, then makes a strangled noise as the tea in her cup becomes a big, dark streak down the front of her dress.

“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry,” says Belle, one hand on her forehead, the other out in a placating gesture. She plucks up the rag she’d been using to wipe down the counter and advances towards the woman—Regina, apparently.

“That’s fine,” Regina snaps, at the same moment as Rumplestiltskin says, “There’s no need for that, dearie.” One or the other of them makes the stain vanish.

Regina passes a hand over her forehead, where a great red splotch has formed. She scowls at Belle, who’s still stammering apologies when Rumplestiltskin inserts himself between she and her, his back to Belle.

“I don’t recall giving you permission to roam my halls, dearie.”

Regina returns the now empty cup to the counter and shrugs a shoulder. “We were out of tea. I thought I’d make more, but it seems your lovely housekeeper beat me to it.”

“How surprisingly considerate.” His voice could frost the windows. “But unnecessary. Shall we finish our business so that you can make yourself at home in your own kitchen?”

She sniffs, raises her chin, and steps around him to the door. Rumplestiltskin follows her, not even acknowledging Belle; he’s too busy glowering at Regina’s back.

 _A dagger?_ Belle knows by heart more tales of her host than she has toes and fingers, and in the past merchants and bards have shared even more of them. Yet she can’t think of a single one that mentions a dagger fitting Regina’s suggestion. Even if such a weapon existed only in rumor, surely it would be better known. She could think of many people who’d dedicate their lives to finding it if ownership of it meant they could hold Rumplestiltskin in thrall.

But what if the rumor  _had_ spread? Hadn’t the old witch from Avonlea claimed she was seeking out something that could defeat the Dark One? What if that defeat came not in the form of his death, but of his enslavement?

She whirls from the counter and begins pacing the space before the hearth. If that were true…but, no, there was no sense in drawing conclusions just yet. Her father had said little about the witch or her plan since Belle had confirmed her willingness to leave the castle. She should have pressed him, but she’d grown too enamored of her revenge to think beyond it. Now is the time to rectify that.

She shovels her meal down, then returns to her room, the words of her letter already arranging themselves in her head. In a flurry she sets out her quill, ink, and parchment. She’s scarcely settled at the desk before her bedroom door rattles in its frame and she nearly flies off of her stool.

“A moment, dearie.” There’s nothing friendly in that voice. Sweat beads in her armpits. Her eyes flit from the desk to the door and she draws a shaky breath before crossing the room in time to intercept the second round of knocks.

“What’s wrong?” she asks when she opens the door.

He smiles thinly. “I see you met Regina.”

“Yes—who is she?”

“She  _was_  the queen consort of Northwood.” He starts to step past her into the room, then catches himself and glances at her. She nods minutely and moves aside to let him enter. “She’s since claimed the throne for herself.”

The Queen of Northwood! No wonder Belle hadn’t recognized her; the queen traveled under strange livery now. Besides that, Belle had always heard that the queen was cordial and quiet. Certainly that wasn’t true of the brazen, laughing woman who’d strolled into the kitchen as if she owned the castle. It seemed she’d changed more than her title in the wake of her husband’s assassination.  

The unforgiving angles of his expression slacken as he takes in her room. He hasn’t entered this place since the night he brought her here. (To her knowledge, anyway) He seems fascinated by the little changes she’s made to make the place her own. His eyes linger on her writing desk. Her heart thuds faster.

“She’s not a particularly pleasant woman,” he continues. “As you might have gleaned. But perhaps not—you two seemed quite cozy when I appeared. What  _were_ you whispering about, dearie?”

“She was telling me about you,” Belle says, and she knows she’s hesitated too long because Rumplestiltskin looks at her sharply before she speaks. “She said she’s known you for some time. You’re a family acquaintance…?”

He snorts. “Something like that. What else did she tell you about me?”

She shakes her head. “Not much.” Then, when he frowns at her, “Really. I think she was only trying to comfort me.”

He runs his fingers over the polished wood of her footboard and sneers. “I very much doubt that. She’s known for many things, but not her compassion.”

Belle spreads her hands and shrugs. “She was only there for a little while.” Then, cautiously, “Was there something you expected her to say?”

His eyes pin her in place. Fear or magic make her skin scrawl. After a moment, his lips curls. “No. I suppose even the queen can have a moment of kindness. Especially if she gets to have one at my expense.”

She has no answer for that, but he doesn’t press the matter further. He leaves, but even afterward his suspicions leave an indelible mark in the atmosphere. When Belle resumes her place at her writing desk she finds the words she’d planned have left her, and her nerves are too tightly wound for her to take up her quill. Her spine tingles with the sensation of eyes upon her. Imagination or warning?

She dithers for a minute before dipping her quill in the inkwell and putting it to the page. Even if Rumplestiltskin suspects her, there’s nothing inherently odd about her writing a letter to her father. Even the timing is blameless—after all, she could have been planning to do this all day; how was she to know Rumplestiltskin would have company, or that said company would stumble across her?

So assured, she composes a letter filled with the usual inanities, beneath which she buries her inquiries about the witch from Avonlea. When she brings the letter to Rumplestiltskin he scrutinizes it long enough to make Belle’s palms sweat before he tucks it in his vest pocket and begrudgingly agrees to send it off later in the day.

* * *

Her father’s reply comes three days later. The witch has never heard of a dagger, and she still refuses to reveal the nature of her own solution, though she continues to promise that it will be ready in time. Though her father chooses his words carefully, Belle can still read the skepticism eating at the edges of his high spirits. She throws the letter aside and paces her room with her arms crossed tightly over her chest.

She’d known all along this would happen, hadn’t she? From her father’s first description she’d assumed the woman to be a charlatan. Better the confirmation come now, before Belle can destroy her duchy’s fragile peace in service to a lie. Shame on her—shame on  _him—_ for dreaming that any of this would work.

The floor blurs. She reaches up to scrub her eyes with a fist. Her knuckles come away wet.

_They say there’s a dagger._

A flicker of hope—no. A rumor, a lie, and she’s had enough of those to last her a lifetime. Rumplestiltskin’s power is unmatched by the greatest wizards and witches in the world; what good would a little scrap of metal do?

 _There was a promise of forever, dearie._ What a fool she's been, thinking it could be otherwise.


End file.
